Across Whitehall, you can hear the bleating of Blairites, defeated by the system

Just after the 2001 election, the triumphant Tony Blair had a plan: he would split the Home Office in two. The PM had been appalled by its performance in New Labour’s first term and had already decided to move Jack Straw to the Foreign Office. But the problem, he feared, could only be solved by creating two new departments. Peter Mandelson urged him to proceed — yet, in the event, both were talked out of it by the Civil Service. I am told that Mr Blair has regretted this ever since.

He will now have his revenge from beyond the political grave. John Reid’s new blueprint to create two distinct departments — Justice and Security — is unlikely to be enacted until Mr Blair has left No. 10. But they represent an important political message which is being put, with varying degrees of clamour, by almost every Blairite surviving in Cabinet.